1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to the interactions between mobile handset and a server within a network, and more specifically to the ability to browse through a multi-step process or activity using a mobile handset such as a cell phone.
2. Related Art
Electronic devices, such as mobile phones and personal digital assistants (PDA's), often contain small screens with very limited viewing area. They are constrained in terms of how much information can be displayed, and in terms of user interaction capabilities. The keyboards on cell phones, for example, are not conducive for user data entry, and only brief user inputs can be solicited from a user without annoying the user.
Often a user would want to seek online help using a mobile phone for conducting an activity such as fixing a problem with a car (changing tires for example) or baking a cake, without having to use a bulky notebook computer that might get damaged due to various constraints and problems of a work area. The use of a computer/notebook is not always possible to retrieve helpful information when they are needed, such as during an accident on the highway, or while cooking in a kitchen that has limited space. The use of a mobile phone is preferable in such circumstances but mobile phones in general are not endowed with the features or applications necessary to facilitate easy access to such information in a format that is useable and convenient. The whole process of retrieving necessary information using a mobile phone is inconvenient due to the inability of the Internet websites to provide information that a typical user can easily read, browse through or view on his mobile phone. Information access from Internet based websites from mobile devices are quite often unsatisfactory and not useful due to several factors, not least of which is the multi-media and graphics rich format in which most Internet websites are designed and made available. A mobile phone with a small screen is not a good candidate for viewing such complicated and graphics rich (with graphics, flash screens, video components, etc.) content.
Often, when a user is driving, he would like to access information from a remote source, such as a website maintained by the operator of the network. However, while driving it is very dangerous to read the information displayed on a cell phone. It is also almost impossible to read those small screens on a cell phone and manipulate the buttons on the cell phone while also driving. It is hard enough manipulating a cell phone keyboard when one is not driving, due to the nature of the keyboard and the tiny keys it provides and the small displays it comes with.
Online help, which typically tends to be verbose, is almost unreadable and altogether complex and inappropriate for access from a cell phone. For example, online help for configuring a network card on a PC, or baking a turkey for Thanksgiving, tend to involve a multi-step activity and therefore detailed in its descriptions. Not only are online help websites not suitable for access via cell phones—they make for bad user experience, but also too verbose and repetitive. Thus, users of cell phones refrain from seeking online help from cell phones.
User interaction in real time, such as those provided for a user using a PC on the Internet, are often not possible for a user using a cell phone. For example, the amount of textual information cannot be a full page of textual information that is typically made available on a PC. Graphical information also cannot be large. A typical website provides a rich multi-media experience. The same website, when accessed from a cell phone, would not only be unreadable, due to its large amount of text, graphics and even video, but also frustrating due to the nature of web sites—the design of websites often being multi-media based (predominantly providing large multi-media web pages full of text, graphics, flash-based and even containing videos). Thus, there is a problem in presenting a mobile user with information in order to solicit user input when the user is using a cell phone. Soliciting user input from a user when the user is using a cell phone, rather than a PC, is a big problem.
Cell phones are therefore a device for which traditional websites are ill prepared to provide information. In addition, surveys or questionnaires that are created for Internet based access via a PC are not appropriate for cell phone access. Asking one or more detailed questions with information on how to answer them is possible on a web page that is accessed from a PC. However, the same web page would be unmanageable and difficult to browse and navigate on a cell phone with a small LCD screen and small keyboard for user input.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art through comparison of such systems with the present invention as set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.